Reviews

The Robinsons return to the setting of their previous collaboration ( Stardance ) to further explore a universe in which humans are given the opportunity to live rarefied lives on the transplanted asteroid Top Step. The Starseed Foundation offers to train volunteers in preparation for joining with a symbiotic lifeform that provides all needed nourishment--food, water, air--and allows humans to live in vacuum. Humans who sign on also become telepathic with one another. The price, one's worldly possessions, is gladly paid by 46-year-old Rain McLeod, who has had to give up dancing (in gravity) because of knee and back injuries. She and several dozen other hopefuls move to Top Step, where the plot expands to include several religious groups offended by the heaven-off-earth created by the symbiote and the plans of various power hungry countries back on earth. The Robinsons' message--that love and communication are what being human is really about--is delivered with plenty of action, high tech and character development in a story that moves along briskly. (Oct.)

For Rain MacLeod, the Top Step program, which transforms humans into immortal Stardancers able to live in the vacuum of space, represents her only hope of continuing her dance career despite her failing body. For a few short-sighted others, the existence of Stardancers represents a threat to all humanity. Suspense builds slowly but inexorably in the latest novel by the authors of Stardance (Dell, 1979) as Rain must choose between her private dream and the greater good in a world poised on the verge of an evolutionary leap. Solid plotting enlivened by dashes of zen and modern dance make this a good choice for most libraries.